Gale said the company was only days away from purchasing the building. The purchase would have allowed them to expand bringing 50 to 100 new jobs to the Kaleva area.

“It’s our goal to inspire people to recycle by donating our profits to local charities and its hard to make a profit in the condition were in right now,” Gale said. “[The fire] only burned about 13 percent of our building the rest of it is all water and smoke damage so we’re hoping to get it all rebuilt and back to the way it was.”

“We don’t want to lose the momentum and the customers and the things that we are doing,” Gale said. “So that’s what the relief fund is doing is to keep everything moving forward.”

The cause of the fire has not been determined yet.

If you have large items and appliances you would like to recycle the BARC recycling plant is on South Airport Road in Traverse City.